“The Russian contemporary art market has been slower to recover since the global financial crisis than classical Russian art. But with international contemporary strong again, we expect Russian contemporary to follow,” he said.

Much Russian contemporary art is still very affordable, compared with Russian classic art and international contemporary, so it is being bought by the growing middle class as well as by the wealthy.”

The London auction house sold 1.4 million pounds (1.6 million euros, 2.2 million dollars) in Russian contemporary art last year, compared to 1.5 million pounds in 2009.